A Book of Hours, in Latin and French produced in Lyons or a little further north...

The Book of Hours is comprised of the following:

1r Calendar, in French (unspecific French use).

7v Gospel Sequences.

11v Obsecro te (masculine).

15r Suffrages (including St Valerian of Autun and St Hubert).

22r Hours of the Cross.

25r Hours of the Holy Spirit.

28r Hours of the Virgin (use of Rome), first folio lacking.

57r Penitential Psalms.

65r Litany (includes St Benignus of Dijon) and Petitions.

68v Office of the Dead.

78r Prayer in French verse, 'A toy vierge tres excellente et digne . . . ', followed by a Rondeau, 'Mere de dieu tresoriere de grace . . . '.

82r Office of Our Lady of Pity.

88v Prayers to all angels and other prayers in French.

91r Preamble to the Rosary Prayers

93r Rosary Prayers to the Virgin, in French.

101v Prayer in French verse, 'Royne qui fustes mise et assize . . . '.

(Jean Sonet, Répertoire d'incipit de prières en ancien français, Geneva, 1956: Incipit No. 1804)

107r Suffrage to St Roch.

107v Verses of St Bernard.

The book pages are of Vellum, and there are 108 folios plus fly-leaves; unfoliated. The text is ruled in red ink, 20 lines per side.

The Script is good Bâtarde, there are minium rubrics; yellow highlights on capitals. The Calendar is represented in red and blue ink with major entries in burnished gold.

There are illuminations on the five line main initials and the minor one-to-three line initials, and line-fillers.

There are Borders on the outer panel on each page, a full border accompanying miniatures (except where there is an architectural frame) with gold ground, with drolleries and filler-dots.

There are 12 marginal illustrations in the calendar. There are 21 small miniatures in text (8 lines), some extending into full borders.

There are 3 extant three-quarter-page miniatures, two arched in thin gold frames, one in plain rectangular trompe-l'oeil frame; and 8 full-page miniatures, all but 81v with a few lines of text on panel or trompe-l'oeil scroll, in gold Renaissance architectural frames.

The Illumination from 1r to 77v is thought to be by an inferior hand related to the Alarmes de Mars group (1480-1490) and from 78r to 108v by The Entry Master (about 1500). The names 'Alarmes de Mars' and 'The Entry Master' are proposed by Elizabeth Burin in her book. 'The Entry Master' is named as the illuminator of an account of the Entry of François the First into Lyons in 1515.

The Binding is 17th-18th century red-brown morocco leather and is gold-tooled. There are marbled pastedowns, with gilt edges and the volume is housed in a red-brown morocco box.

Bibliography

Parke-Bernet, New York, auction catalogue, 24 March 1954, Lot 595.

Sotheby's, London, auction catalogue, 21 June 1994, pp. 120-122, Lot 112.

Sotheby's, London, auction catalogue, 19 June 2001, pp. 50-54, Lot 44.

Elizabeth Burin - see below, Book (1) in the 'General References'.

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